How To Deal With Urges Without White Knuckling

Ever get hit by an urge to sexually act out and you don’t know what to do about it besides engage in your unwanted sexual behaviours or white knuckle your way through and hold it together?

Sure, you may have avoided a close one but how enjoyable is this process and how long will you be able to keep this up?

It definitely does not sound very enjoyable and the only other alternative you have is to act out which is just as destructive.

What if I were to tell you that no matter how strong these urges may feel to you, that there is another way out than white knuckling it?

To begin to understand how this reality exists, it starts with accepting the truth of the matter which is that your urges just don’t happen out of nowhere or for no reason or meaning and they actually go deeper than just you being physically or sexually stimulated.

When you solely “white knuckle” your way through recovery, by avoiding all places and situations just so you are not triggered to act out, it will not be very sustainable in the long run because a majority of your urges are non sexual in nature.

Think about the actual phrase “white knuckling”: by definition, it means to do something that causes you to experience very strong feelings of fear, anxiety, and or nervousness. Think riding a scary roller coaster ride while clenching on the railings waiting for that experience to be over.

“Urges just don’t happen out of nowhere or for no reason or meaning and they actually go deeper than just you being physically or sexually stimulated.”

When you are white knuckling at the time of an urge, you resist with dear life the urge and intensity to act out with all the willpower you have.

Therefore, the other important piece of the puzzle is understanding what to actually do with your urges. The beginning of this is understanding that there is a reason behind your urges, and they are actually messengers for deeper issues.

If you can see this reality, you can begin to see the way out.

And what is that way out?

One of the ways I work with people in navigating through their urges without “white knuckling” their way through, is by helping them navigate through the emotional messages behind the intensity.

What happens when you white knuckle is that you are simply resisting the urge to act out without slowing down to see what triggered you or caused the itch to act out to begin with!

By ignoring the real messages behind the urges, you are never really resolving the trigger of that urge itself in the first place and you are instead repressing your emotions that are causing the urges to occur.

This repression over time leads to a pressure building up inside you that will inevitably seek to be released through your temporary soother, your drug of choice: your unwanted sexual behaviours.

The way out of that is only by slowing down, and being still and feeling your emotions in your body and connecting with yourself to get to the subtler message behind your urges.

This is what will allow you to safely let out what needs to be let out without having to turn to sex as an escape.

When you choose not to act out but also couple that with working through your emotions, not only will this release the emotional energy that had been building up in your body, it will also build a healthy and alternative pathway in your brain to deal with your emotions, instead of resorting to your unwanted sexual behaviours to numb them out.

Yes, urges may happen again, but through this process, they will become less scary and more easier to handle when you deal with the root of them.

Zeyad Ramadan

Zeyad Ramadan is the founder of Purify Your Gaze. Through his leadership, Purify Your Gaze has served as the personal recovery guide for thousands of Muslims coming from over 35 different countries around the world in the various stages of their healing journey and has provided support to its members through its addiction recovery tools, its workshops, and personal 1-1 coaching. Zeyad has successfully lead workshops and delivered talks dealing with sexual intimacy, addiction recovery, embracing true gender roles, and spirituality. He currently lives with his wife and four kids in Orange County, California. Connect with Zeyad on Facebook and Twitter.

Purify Your Gaze is the safe-place where Muslims struggling with pornography and sex addiction can find acceptance, guidance, and healing as they aspire towards a life of sexual purity and intimate connections, grounded in the deep surrender to God.
We aim to share ideas and thought-provoking content on a wide range of topics: including the effects of pornography and sexual addiction, healing from trauma, recovery principles for those seeking change, personal accounts of Muslims in recovery, and a new paradigm for healthy sexuality, relationships and intimacy as inspired by our Islamic traditions.